


The Keymistress of Time

by ModernWizard



Series: Alison Wonderland [8]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka
Genre: ...and her chief priest the Lord Master, Alison and the Master as seen by someone other than Alison, Alison is a goddess, Also that would be a waste of a wonderful character, And she doesn't die, Angst with a Happy Ending, Consent, Consent Issues, Did you think I could write something without angst?, F/M, Femme Fatale, Fix-It, For lo I am the Angstmaster!, Galleia, Galleia POV, Galleia of Atlantis, Galleia's childhood, Gen, Happy Ending, In other words it's like the usual DW serial!, Queen Galleia - Freeform, Queen Galleia of Atlantis, Serial: s064 The Time Monster, Sexual Assault, Some of this I just pulled out of my ass, Some of this is historically accurate, The Keymistress of Time, Time Travel Fix-It, Traitor who doomed her civilization?, Vain shallow woman?, and her recurrent encounters with divinity, and the Master serves her, as well as the cultural influences that made her the way she is, at least according to Galleia, because I said so, which is not technically incorrect
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-16 10:45:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13634700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernWizard/pseuds/ModernWizard
Summary: Before Galleia of Atlantis even dreamed of being Queen, she was a poor wigmaker's daughter who liked making jewelry out of bugs. Then she met a goddess, the Keymistress of Time, and the goddess' chief priest, the Lord Master. They told her that she was destined for greatness, but they also knew that something terrible would happen to Atlantis in the near future. Galleia was just a girl, though, and no one listened to her. How was she supposed to save the world?





	1. Foreword

If you’re wondering why I wrote this and where I got the bit about weevils in the oil-soaked peas, read on. If the thrills of historical research don’t interest you, skip this chapter.

 

Though not rigorous enough to be called true historical fiction, _The Keymistress of Time_ still takes its foundation from historical facts. It is set in and around Akrotiri, a prosperous Minoan city on the present-day Greek island of Santorini. Akrotiri wiped out in a volcanic explosion around 1650 BCE or so, preserved in hardened ash until archeological excavations began in the mid-twentieth century.

 

In the 1960s, enough of Akrotiri had been unearthed for archaeologists and others to get an idea of its size and contents. People began speculating that Akrotiri might be the site of Atlantis, the fictional country that Plato described in several dialogues. These theories were popularized over the years. They eventually inspired the depiction of Atlantis in the DW serial _The Time Monster_ as a once-thriving city on the island of Thera, also known as Santorini.

 

I chose to locate the Atlantis of _The Time Monster_ in Akrotiri since that’s obviously what the DW showrunners were aiming for. Thus the details about climate, weather, food, flora, and fauna come from my [admittedly not extensive] research on the place. For example, the eyeless bugs that Galleia works with in the beginning of the story are of the species found in grain storage containers at the Akrotiri excavations. In other words, [ there were weevils in the peas. ](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0022474X9190043C) I love finding information like this online. Specificity like that just brings a story to life.

 

While Galleia’s Atlantis is a real geographical place, its culture is mostly made up. With the chitons, statues of Poseidon, and appearances of the Minotaur, the DW showrunners gave Atlantis an atmosphere of stereotypical Ancient Greece. Therefore I used my general knowledge of Ancient Greece and its mythology as the outline for Atlantean culture.

 

I didn’t feel like doing too much research, though, because the DW costume design team was having way too much anachronistic fun. I loved that the Atlantis of _The Time Monster_ featured dramatic eye makeup and intricately constructed wigs for everyone, no matter their age or gender. This obsession with carefully maintained beauty inspired Galleia’s father’s profession. It also inspired Galleia’s interest in making ornaments out of bugs and gave me another way of depicting her as a character who felt isolated from the people around her, perhaps a little ahead of her time aesthetically.

 

Two other narrative choices should be mentioned here: Galleia’s appearance and Galleia’s age. In _The Time Monster,_ she is played by blond, blue-eyed Pole Ingrid Pitt. She, who was famous for playing voluptuous vampires in various Hammer horror films, was about 35 when the serial aired in 1972.

 

In my story, Galleia has golden-brown skin, brown eyes, and black hair -- you know, like a person whose ancestors have lived in the northeast Mediterranean for generations. _The Time Monster_ presented a very white and Northern European interpretation of Atlantis, inaccurate, unimaginative, lazy, and boring. I wanted to counteract that in _The Keymistress of Time._

 

My Galleia is also much younger than the one in _The Time Monster._ Seven when she first appears, she’s in her early twenties when the story ends. The story focuses on her formative childhood and teenage years because, when I watched _The Time Monster,_ I immediately began to wonder about her. How did this ambitious, politically savvy, smart young woman end up as the restless, bored, and frustrated wife of a much older man? The serial tried its best to make her a vain, superficial _femme fatale_ whose susceptibility to the Master’s flattery led her to doom her civilization, but all my sympathies lay with her. I knew that I wasn’t getting the full story.

 

So here it is, folks: the full story of Galleia, daughter of the wigmaker Proteus of Atlanteion, wife of King Dalios of Atlantis, and favorite of the goddess Keymistress of Time Alison Cheney, as well as the goddess’ chief priest the Lord Master. I hope you have as much fun reading as I did writing.


	2. The Power in Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Galleia is trying to prepare weevils for jewelry in her father's wig shop. Her eventual husband Hippias won't stop pestering her. Galleia resorts to drastic measures.

“Ugh, why are you playing with bugs?” Hippias the Lesser -- or _the Least,_ as Galleia thought of him -- leaned against the worktable, right in Galleia’s light. He flexed his muscles, showing off the gold cuff on his upper arm, a symbol that he was a new recruit for King Dalios’ Royal Guard. He was just fourteen, but already as vain as his father.

 

Galleia moved her supplies further down the table so that she was under the window. Since her sixth birthday, her father had let her work for him and even use his tools, as long as he was in the room. He was on the other side of the shop, talking to his landlord Hippias Senior, so Galleia was working on something of her own. “I’m an apprentice wigmaker,” she said to the Least, not looking at him, “and I’m not playing. I’m doing my job -- I’m making jewelry.”

 

She lined up four dead weevils on a pale, faded cloth so she could see them better. She’d gotten them out of her mother’s jars of oil-soaked peas, dried them in the sun, and removed any remaining oil from them with an old paintbrush. Now they were ready for glazing.

 

“Jewelry is supposed to be pretty. See?” The Least pulled a long butterfly-headed pin from from his curly updo and stuck it under her nose. Ever since he had come of age and been allowed to dress like a man, the Least had been showing off his new wigs, makeup, and accessories. He still looked like a ridiculous boy, though, tall and gangly, his hands and feet too big for his body. Galleia dreamed about ramming the pin through his lips; maybe then he’d shut up.

 

Galleia drew a pot of watered-down glue toward her and dipped a paintbrush in it. Then she picked up one of the weevils with narrow metal tongs. The insect was the size of her thumbnail and black, covered with tiny bumps that reflected the cloudy light and made it look like hammered silver. Its slender legs had little toes on the ends, and even its feelers were jointed. It must have felt every single vibration of every single leaf when it was alive. As she brushed a thin layer of translucent glue over the weevil to preserve it, Galleia smiled to herself. She could think of nothing more beautiful than the corpse of an intricate, shining animal with the power to ruin harvests and starve people.

 

“My father bought this for me.” The Least continued to wave the hairstick in Galleia’s face. “It cost twice what your father pays in rent.”

 

“Your father buys you everything. Isn’t that how you got into the Royal Guard?” Galleia swatted aside the hairstick. The butterflies on the end of it sagged under so many sequins that they looked like they were shitting spangles. _You can have all the money in Atlantis,_ her father told her, _but you can’t buy taste._ The Hippiases were walking proof. They were the richest people in Atlanteion, the small village outside Akrotiri, the major city of Atlantis, but they were the worst dressed.

 

“At least my father buys me stuff. Yours is so poor that he has to sleep with traders to even get supplies,” said the Least.

 

He was talking about Neferi and Ptah, the traders who came from the Nile River delta every other year. They gave Galleia’s father fine white cotton and news from the southern shores. He gave them olive oil for their salves and shampoos, as well as his latest creations, wigs that looked like hurricane clouds and tiaras of jeweled thorns. And they didn’t sleep with him at all. They just stayed up all night talking fashion with him because he had good taste.

 

Galleia didn’t answer. Finishing one weevil, she stuck it on a pin wedged in the wooden tabletop. The Least always mocked her, no matter what she said. Unfortunately, because of a bargain between her father and Senior, she was stuck with him. Senior gave Galleia’s father a discount on his rent because Galleia was going to marry the Least after she started her monthly courses and came of age herself.

 

What could Galleia do about it? Well, she could marry the Least, then kill him afterward. Then she’d have all his money, but he wouldn’t be around to make fun of her. On second thought, maybe it would be easier just to find a nicer husband-to-be.

 

The Least asked Galleia to kiss him. She glazed another weevil instead. He said that kissing was fun. Sticking the second weevil on a pin and beginning the third, Galleia remembered the other thing that he tried to convince her was fun: touching his sword. He was a liar. It wasn’t fun for her at all. She ignored him harder.

 

“If you kiss me, I’ll tell you where Nyx is.” The Least sounded whiny now.

 

“Where is she?” Galleia glanced up at the mention of her pet black cat. “Has she had her kittens yet?”

 

“No, but she’s very close.” The Least wouldn’t say anything more without a kiss, so Galleia closed her eyes and stood still while he pushed his mouth against hers. “There. That wasn’t so bad, was it? --If you take the eastern path up from town, she’s about a quarter of a kilometer in. There an old twisted tree with a pile of rocks at the foot, and she’s in a little cave between the rocks.”

 

“I’m going to check on Nyx!” Yelling to her father, Galleia stopped up the glue pot and put her paintbrush in a jar of rainwater. Making sure all her weevils were drying securely on their pins, she pulled her mantle off a hook and ran for the front of the shop.

 

The Least grabbed her by the arm. “Hey, you just stood there. You didn’t kiss me back.”

 

“Don’t play coy, Galleia,” said Senior. He was older than Galleia’s father and gangly like his son, except for a round, hanging belly. His wig had so much silver wound through it that Galleia would have compared it to the maggots she had seen once in a dead dog’s skull. But maggots would have been better. They were glistening and bright, as gleaming as stars, with power over death and decay. As for Senior’s wig, it was just overloaded and silly.

 

“Give the boy what he wants,” added Galleia’s father with an encouraging smile. He was short and finely built, with a permanent squint from looking at small ornaments for so many years. The loose black curls of his wig fell over his shoulders, with blazes of silver striped in it that matched his eyeshadow. He had studs of black glassy volcanic stone in the first holes in his ears, but he was wearing one of Galleia’s first tries at a spider earring in the second hole on his right. He, Neferi, and Ptah were the only ones who wore what she made. Even her own mother said it was filthy and disgusting.

 

With everyone watching, Galleia had to do it. She squashed her mouth against the Least’s for the shortest possible time. He tried to open her lips with his tongue. How could she make him quit slobbering on her? She got an idea. “Do you want something more?” she said into his ear.

 

“Yes!” he said.

 

Galleia bit down as hard as she could on the Least’s ear lobe. He shrieked, and his blood started running in her mouth. His scream went through her like a flash of lightning. She felt as delicate and sensitive as a weevil, as shiny and lively as a maggot, as sharp and venomous as a scorpion. There was power in pain, and she tasted it.

 

“Poseidon’s piss!” cursed the Least. “She bit me!”

 

Oh, she wanted that power to last forever, but it probably wasn’t a good idea to chew off a chunk of her intended husband’s ear and watch him bleed all over the floor. Galleia opened her jaws and pushed away from him.

 

“When are you going to do something about that brat of yours, Proteus?” asked Senior, laughing, as Galleia ran off.

  



	3. The Keymistress and the Lord Master

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On her way to find her cat, Galleia meets the most powerful goddess in the universe, the Keymistress of Time, as well as her chief priest, the Lord Master.

Before she began to look for Nyx, Galleia stopped at home and put on her travel sandals, as well as a hooded mantle. Then, tying a sack of food around her waist, she left, taking the trail out of town as the Least had directed. 

 

A glance at the sky told her that one of Poseidon’s gifts was coming. The undersides of the charcoal clouds looked slightly green, like old bruises, and the air was still. Galleia, whose mother was a sea captain’s daughter, had been taught early on what such signs meant: a storm.

 

As she was making for the forest, she came across a dead scorpion on the path. It was one of the tiny, pale yellow ones that lived everywhere here on Atlantis. Even though she was running to find her cat, Galleia stopped. One of these scorpions had bitten her before, but she hadn’t been able to kill it to add to her collection. Now was her chance! She wrapped it in a corner of her mantle and went on.

 

Galleia entered the trees. There was a huge boom of thunder and a flash right overhead. The wind spat hail into her face. Galleia kept up a stream of swears, sailor’s language that she had learned from her mother. What good was it for Atlantis to be Poseidon’s favorite if he sent storms like these? They didn’t bring much rain at all, but blasts of cold air that caused frostbite, damaged roofs, and even drowned people. 

 

But Galleia’s mother said that the storms were actually blessings. Poseidon’s gifts taught people how to read secret signs and learn what was coming.  _ Prepare for Poseidon’s gifts, _ she said to her daughter,  _ and he will provide for you. _

 

Well, he wasn’t providing right now. Galleia slipped into a patch of mud. The wind howled so loudly that she couldn’t hear Nyx anymore. “B-B-Bloated corpse of a drowned sea nymph!” Galleia let out the worst curse she knew. “I was prepared, Poseidon! Now you’re supposed to provide. How about something more useful than a mud puddle?”

 

At that moment, a temple appeared in the air before her: a small rotunda supported by fluted columns. There were so many twisty vines and leaves carved at the top of the pillars that they looked like trees in spring, just leafing out. Galleia, trembling, just stared as the temple, its white marble shining like the moon, landed silently. Had the god of the sea actually been paying attention?

 

No god appeared, though. Instead a goddess now stood between the central pillars of the temple. With her warm, middle brown skin and tall, strong body, she reminded Galleia of Neferi and Ptah. Galleia could tell with just one look that the goddess had nothing to do with Poseidon. She was much more powerful.

 

Where Neferi and Ptah had beaded braids and sparkly eyelids, the goddess was plain and stern. Her sharp, unpainted face bore no makeup, and she had no wig and little color in her clothes. A heavy mantle covered most of her, black on the outside, embroidered with little white skulls on the inside. She looked like she was wearing night and death. Her tightly curled, dark brown hair spread out loose all around her head, like rays of the sun. Galleia realized that she didn’t have a wig because she was already wearing a crown, growing from her skull. A small golden key hung at her throat from a black band. She was night and day and the universe in one. She could unlock the secrets of time. She could do anything. She was the Keymistress. 

 

“Hi, I’m Alison -- Alison Cheney,” the goddess said. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it reminded Galleia of a tragedian’s: even, poetic, made to be listened to. “Please don’t be scared. It looks like you’re in a spot of trouble.”

 

Galleia drew herself up as far as she could, which wasn’t very far. “I’m Galleia of Akrotiri,” she said, even though she actually lived just outside the great city, “daughter of Proteus the wigmaker, and I’m not scared. I’m just...stuck. Thank you, O great Keymistress, for helping me. Poseidon’s being mean and not providing.”

 

The Keymistress reached out; Galleia took her hands, but she couldn’t get free. The Keymistress turned to a man at her side. “Can you do some magical alien robot thing and pry her loose, please?” 

 

The man crouched to Galleia’s level. He was obviously the Keymistress’ chief priest, with a lock on the collar around his neck and robes of sunset colors. He was an Atlantean too, so his golden brown skin and wavy black hair were the same color as Galleia’s. With deep-set eyes and a long, straight nose that turned down at the end, he reminded Galleia of statues of Poseidon, only better because he was smiling. Disturbingly, he had no wig; Galleia could see that he was going bald at the top of his head. At least he was properly made up, though he could use some more eyeliner. 

 

“Hello, my dear.” The man’s voice rolled as if he was singing or praying. “I am the Master. I had hoped to intervene in your history slightly later than this, after your marriage.” With a sigh, he swept up his skirts in a handful and leapt directly from the temple’s lintel into the mud. 

 

“However,” he continued, making faces as the mud splattered over his boots, “my thoroughly disobedient TARDIS and my persistently obnoxiou _ s  _ cat insisted that we were needed here and now. Might I wrest you from the mire?” he asked Galleia, holding his free arm out. Galleia nodded, and the Lord Master plucked her from the mud as if she weighed nothing.

 

Just as they were about to go inside, Galleia realized that she had left both her sandal and her scorpion behind. The Lord Master got back her shoe, though he was very sad about muddying up his glove to do so. He didn’t want to find her scorpion for her, though. He said it was  _ unsanitary, possibly venomous, and unsafe for a child of her years. _ He sounded like her parents.

 

Galleia jumped out of the Lord Master’s arms and faced him on the portico of the temple, protected from the storm by the overhang. He was a mortal like her, even if he was about three times her size and older than the King, so she wasn’t scared of him at all. “I’m six years old,” she informed him, her hands on her hips. “I know how to handle dangerous things without getting hurt. That’s not even a really venomous scorpion. One of them bit me before, and I just sweated and burned for a little bit, but then I got better. It was kind of interesting, actually. It was like there was a little volcano inside me. Now please, my Lord Master, will you find me my scorpion?”

 

“I like this kid!” said the Keymistress with a big smile. “I can’t wait to see what she’s like when she grows up.”

 

“Oh, trust me.” The Lord Master winked at the Keymistress. “She’s formidable.”

 

_ “Formidable  _ had better not mean  _ bratty!” _ Galleia called to him as he went back out into the night.

 

“It means  _ brave and strong and powerful,” _ the Keymistress assured her. The Lord Master returned Galleia’s scorpion to her, and they finally entered the sacred chambers of the Keymistress of Time.

  
  
  



	4. Inside the Keymistress' Temple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Galleia meets TARDIS Scintilla, has a tour of the Keymistress' temple, and develops new plans for marrying rich.

Galleia, the Keymistress, and the Lord Master now stood in the antechamber to the temple, a circular room with pure white walls and pure black ceiling and floor. At the center stood a pillar, and its purple-white core moved slowly up and down. Altars, tables, and chairs lined the walls, covered with square and rectangular pictures that flickered and changed as quickly as the colors of the sunset. The Lord Master circled the room, tending to the altars. He touched and bowed before some, murmuring prayers to others, satisfying himself that time was running right.

 

The Keymistress settled Galleia in a soft cushioned chair and, with her permission, replaced her wet mantle with a dry blanket. It was quiet in here, except for a low hum. It buzzed up from the floor, like the first shake of the earth just before a volcano erupted. The Keymistress’ temple was full of power; Galleia could feel it. Some day she would be this full of power too. She let out a sigh. She had never felt so warm and safe, except in her dreams.

 

The inner door to the temple opened. A shiny pink person with blue makeup and clothes entered, along with a huge black bat. No...it wasn’t a bat, but a flying black cat with bat wings. The shiny person bounced over to Galleia. She had long black painted eyebrows, as well as eyes that looked like two bright green candles in her head. A shimmery blue, dark and deep like the sea on a cloudy day, filled in her wide lips and spread up her eyelids to her eyebrows. 

 

“I’m Scintilla,” said the shiny person in a quick, bright voice, “and I’m the Master’s TARDIS.” As far as Galleia could tell, that meant she was the Lord Master’s maidservant. “Well, technically, I’m just part of the Master’s TARDIS -- a wirelessly controlled robotic manifestation. The rest of me is this temple that you’re in. Do you like the exterior architecture? Miss Alison the history geek said that the columns were supposed to be Doric. But Corinthian is just so much fancier and more fun! So, uh, I kind of cheated at history and added a few flowers to the capitals. Well, a lot of flowers, actually. But it’s such an improvement -- don’t you agree?” The flying cat let out an especially loud, scratchy noise in the Lord Master’s direction, and TARDIS Scintilla said, “Imp! Don’t meow at your Master like that!”

 

Imp tried to get the Lord Master’s attention, but he wasn’t behaving. Finally Imp made a four-point landing on his head, peered over his brow into his face, and yelled something very snarly and mean. It ended with  _ oooouw oooouw _ , a perfect echo of Nyx’s distress call, followed by  _ miiiiii miiiiii, _ the sound that Nyx made when she herself was a baby. 

 

“She says,” reported the Lord Master, “that there’s a mother out there with tiny defenseless children and I’d better find them and bring them indoors, or she’s going to banish me from my TARDIS.”

 

Galleia jumped up. “Oh! Oh! Can she hear my kitty? That’s why I was in the woods -- to see if her kittens had been born.”

 

“Prrrrp!” Imp flew toward Galleia and head-butted her a few times on the cheek. Galleia had the feeling that she was glad that someone was listening to her.

 

“Hey, Magister, will you please go out and find Galleia’s kitties?” asked the Keymistress. “I know dirt and bad weather and nature in general just kind of gross you out, but you’re the one with the super hearing who won’t freeze your arse off. Scintilla and I will stay here and make Galleia comfy.”

 

“But of course, Domina,” said the Lord Master. When his goddess talked to him, everything about him changed. His voice grew quieter; his eyes opened wider; he leaned forward. He smiled, as if it would be the best thing in the world for her to tell him what to do. “Never fear, my dear,” he said to Galleia. “Imp and I shall find your Nyx and her children and bring them back to you.”

 

“Oh, thank you, Lord Master...Priest...Master! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Galleia cried.

 

“Before I go,” said the Lord Master, moving to stand before the Keymistress, “would you -- “ He peeled off his dirty gloves, looking sick. “Would you be so kind as to remove these from my sight?” 

 

The Keymistress glanced from the Lord Master’s gloves to his face. She smiled. “Yeah, sure. You know -- I’ve been meaning to tell you -- I like your hands that way: uncovered.”

 

“Oh…” The Lord Master looked at his hands as if it was the first time he was seeing them, and so did Galleia. He had no skin, only bare metal bones, wound about with colored wires, inset with gems. She understood then what he was. Just as Hephaestus, god of the forge, had constructed mechanical helpers of metal, so the Keymistress, goddess of time, had built the Lord Master from precious metals and stones. She gave him life so that he could be her priest, and she made him as beautiful as a jewel so that he would be worthy of her. “You do?” he said to her.

 

“Ah, well, I mean…” The Keymistress stammered. “I know you have your gloves for protecting all that circuitry, and I’m certainly not asking you not to wear them. I just meant...I like how you are -- You’re, uh, well -- “ 

 

“--Lovely.” The Lord Master finished the Keymistress’s sentence for her. “You’re very lovely,  _ mea Domina carissima _ .” He pressed the center of her lower lip with one skinless fingertip. The Keymistress raised her head; looking him in the eyes, she smiled slowly. Right then she looked as if it would be the best thing in the world to do whatever he asked of her. They might be goddess and priest, but the Lady Keymistress and the Lord Master were also equals, fellow gods of time.    
  


The Lord Master left to find Nyx and her kittens, while the Keymistress and TARDIS Scintilla brought Galleia further into the temple. It was even bigger than the multistory merchants’ houses in Akrotiri that her father had told her about, with more rooms than Galleia could count. The air in every room was warm, and so was the running water from the indoor fountains. Best of all, there was an indoor privy that flushed away your shit with even more running water. Galleia, now clean, dry, and cozy, realized she couldn’t settle for marrying the Least. He wasn’t rich enough for indoor privies. 

 

Maybe she could become part of the Keymistress’ temple. Galleia, whose family could barely afford a single maidservant, hadn’t seen any help to take care of this amazing mansion. TARDIS Scintilla clearly lived here too, but she seemed more like the Lord Master’s personal servant instead of someone who did general work. Maybe the goddess needed more priests? She’d become a devotee of the Keymistress if it meant quarters like this.

 

Just as the Keymistress, Galleia, and TARDIS Scintilla settled in a book room with some drink called  _ cocoa,  _ the Lord Master returned. Imp was hovering by his shoulder, and his arms were full of cats. Nyx, cradled in the Keymistress’ skull-lined cape, lay on her side, along with five tiny black kittens. Three of them were nursing, while two of them, even smaller, were just lying there. Galleia stroked Nyx’s head with one finger and felt Nyx’s purr thrumming from Nyx into the kittens and even Galleia herself. 

 

The Keymistress made  _ squeeeee _ noises when she saw the cats and hopped on her toes like she was younger than Galleia. The Lord Master smiled fondly at her, and then he began purring himself. Just like Nyx with her kittens, the Lord Master seemed to take care of the Keymistress and keep her safe, even though she was the goddess. Just when she thought that she had it all figured out, Galleia was confused again about their relationship.

 

The Lord Master spoke up sadly. It was nearly midnight, and Galleia needed to go home. Second, Nyx and the three stronger kittens were doing well, but the two smaller ones had  _ severe hypothermia. _ He could send Nyx and the healthy kittens back with Galleia, but he did not think that the two little ones would survive unless they stayed here. 

 

Galleia said that everyone could stay, including her. Then she could serve the Keymistress, and all the cats would live, and everyone would be happy. The Keymistress looked puzzled by the whole idea, like she didn’t have a huge temple in desperate need of servants. Meanwhile, the Lord Master and TARDIS Scintilla gave each other that look that Galleia’s parents exchanged right before they told her not to do something. She obviously wasn’t going to join the Keymistress’ temple tonight. Galleia hated being so young and promised herself that she would become a formidable woman as quickly as possible. 

 

In the end, the Keymistress took Galleia home. The night breeze was much gentler than the storm wind, but it still blew sand into Galleia’s eyes, along with the smell of old cooking fires. No matter how much she and her mother and the maidservant cleaned, this had always been a dusty, stained place, and it always would be. Her father said that he had heard from someone that King Dalios could use the baths everyday in the palace at Akrotiri. But there was no way that Galleia was getting anywhere near the palace…

 

\--Unless, of course, Galleia became Queen. If she wanted to marry rich, why not dump the Least and go for the richest person in Atlantis? If she married the King, she and her family could live like the Keymistress and her chief priest. Besides, the King was over seventy and near the end of his life anyway. He’d outlived one wife, but he wouldn’t outlive Galleia. He’d be dead in a few years, and then she’d be Queen. Then no one would be able to stop her. 

 

Galleia smiled to herself as she said goodbye to the Keymistress, the Lord Master, and TARDIS Scintilla. That was what she would do then. She had no idea how to be charming, but people kept telling her she was pretty, so she could at least be beautiful. Even though she was poor, she would make the King pay attention to her. She would become Queen, and then she wouldn’t have to worry about being either charming or beautiful because she’d have heated water, indoor privies, and something worth much more than charm or beauty. She’d have power. She’d be formidable.


End file.
